Welter: UNC grass might not be greener, but the culture needs a different shade of blue whether Mack Brown stays or goes

The handshake lasted about as long as this was actually a game. Dave Doeren and Mack Brown met at midfield after a 39-20 NC State win and little was said. The play on the field spoke volumes. For as impressive as NC State was, North Carolina was more disappointing. In the biggest game of the season, the Tar Heels failed to show up.

"It's on me completely," Brown said after the game. "You can't play as bad as we did in the first half without the head coach doing a poor job. I had our team poorly prepared obviously."

The ACC's top offense, led by arguably the nation's best quarterback, didn't muster a drive over four plays in the first half. Carolina literally couldn't find their footing on Carter-Finley's natural grass. When they weren't slipping, they were tripping over themselves with false start and unsportsmanlike penalties, dooming possessions before they even began.

"I told [the players] to get UNC to the brink where they would get penalties," Doeren said after the game. "Get those guys to that [emotional] state, be physical within the rules go after them. I call it a NASCAR mentality. You drive that race car as fast as you can. You come around those turns, but you don't crash the car."

Doeren had another euphemism for how his defense shutdown Carolina's offense: "The cycle of death."

"You play these fast tempo teams, and if they go three and out and you have a five minute drive and score, then they come out and go three and out again, then you go five minutes again and score, that wears out their defense," Doeren said.

The NC State victory was the third straight for the Wolfpack in the series. In 2022, NC State won in double overtime after Carolina missed a field goal that would have forced a third. In 2021, NC State came back from a 30-21 deficit in the final 2:12 on two Emeka Emezie touchdowns and an onside kick. Those games were coin flips. In this one, the Wolfpack left nothing to chance.

"It's over 1,400 days since they've beat us," Doeren said. "That's a pretty awesome thing to be able to do because that's a good football team with a good coaching staff, and I'm proud of our guys for that."

The Wolfpack finished the year on a five-game win streak, ranked and on their way to a respectable bowl. UNC collapsed down the stretch for the second straight season. They lost their final four games in 2022. This year's team finished 2-4 in their last six with wins over Campbell and Duke, who was led by their third-string quarterback (and needed overtime to do it).

“If you want to have culture, come to Raleigh,” NC State linebacker Payton Wilson said. “Them boys in blue don’t know about it."

Culture seems to be the differentiating factor between these two programs, other than their colors. NC State defined by its toughness, grit and perseverance. Words that can just be empty platitudes on a poster, but under Doeren, it's a way of life.

"I asked the coaches to be aggressive in this game," Doeren said. "To me, the players follow our lead," Doeren said.

In a season where Doeren was feeling the heat early after a 3-2 start, he now feels like he's a made man for life in Raleigh.

"S---, be happy we won," Doeren sneered after a 24-21 win over Virginia.

"Tell Steve Smith in the studio this ain't a basketball school," Doeren said after a 24-17 win over Clemson in the postgame interview on the CW Network. "He can kiss my a--."

Doeren has had his viral moments this year, and to his credit, the outside noise didn't break his football team. It brought them together. You cannot say the same thing about UNC.

"I keep looking for ways to win more than eight games. We've got a chance to win nine again, which is pretty good around here, in a bowl game," Brown said when I asked him about Carolina under-performing the last three seasons.

"Had a great game against Duke two weeks ago, three weeks ago whatever it was. We played a good team tonight. They are hard to beat over here, and they played better than we did," Brown finished.

Brown, who is about as generous with his press conference time as any coach in the country, couldn't get out of the tiny NC State visiting team press conference room fast enough. Over the last three years, that was as terse as I've seen him. I think it's because he knows the hard truth and even admitted in the context of this game, this is his fault.

"I thought they tried," Brown said. "I did a poor job preparing this team to play or we wouldn't have looked that bad."

When pressed as he was last night, Brown often points to where the program was before he returned to Chapel Hill: 3-9 in 2017 and 2-9 in 2018. He's now 35-26 since taking over in 2019. They've made a bowl game each year with a loss in the Orange Bowl being the highlight. He's made the program relevant again, but where do they go from here?

"It gets brought up every year," Brown said when asked whether he would be back next season. "When you're 72, that's a regular mark it down it's the Thursday before the last game before recruiting starts."

Brown deserves as much criticism as he does credit for the job he's done in Chapel Hill since 2019. The records ultimately are fine, but it's hard to say he's gotten the most out of his talent. Brown had top fifteen recruiting classes 2020-2022. He had three years of Sam Howell and two with Drake Maye at quarterback. Assuming Maye enters the draft this year, those are two starting NFL quarterbacks.

For context, the only college programs to have at least two current starting NFL quarterbacks this season are Oklahoma, Ohio State, Clemson, and Alabama. I'm a Notre Dame fan. We haven't had two in my lifetime: Brady Quinn and Deshone Kizer who both failed with the Cleveland Browns. The idea that Conner Harrell is just going to take the baton or someone else is going to seamlessly transfer in is misguided. It might happen, but it's far from a guarantee.

Compare UNC's talent and quarterback situation to NC State. Doeren's recruiting class in 2020 was ranked 44th, 2021 36th and 2022 64th (via 247 sports). Last season, he lost ACC preseason player of the year Devin Leary to injury and had to play a mix of Jack Chambers, MJ Morris and Ben Finley (the latter as I mentioned beat Carolina).

This year, Doeren bailed from the MJ Morris redshirt plan when Virginia transfer Brennan Armstrong struggled, only to have Morris then decide himself that he no longer wanted to start to preserve his redshirt.

In Howell's three years, he missed one start versus Wofford. Maye has missed none.

Duke's Mike Elko just entered the chat. Imagine where the Blue Devils would be if Riley Leonard AND Henry Belin didn't get injured.

Brown is a great recruiter and advocate for the UNC program, but there's an argument that he's the Triangle's third best coach right now. NC Central fans probably saying, "What about Trei Oliver?" And you've got a case as well. Oliver's "Culture over scheme," mantra feels relevant too when it comes to Brown. A lot of UNC football's appeal feels rooted in their basketball history and their colors, but where are the results?

Brown's message Saturday was that he prepared the team poorly, and it's become a pattern. Since 2020, his team's have lost seven times as a double-digit favorite. Losing at home to Virginia while winning the turnover battle and surrendering an eleven-point fourth quarter lead at Georgia Tech in back-to-back games was particularly inexplicable. He's gone through multiple coordinators on both sides of the ball. The Chip Lindsey hire was largely successful, but bringing Gene Chizik back failed miserably, so I expect more to come. At this point, changes to the staff might not be enough.

Athletic director Bubba Cunningham will have to find a replacement for Brown eventually whether Brown retires on his own or is forced out. Yes, he's one of the few active national championship winning coaches and will always have a special place in Tar Heel history, but this was never meant to be a permanent solution. The grass might not be greener after he's gone, but the culture at Carolina needs a different shade of blue whether he stays or goes.